Is it time to celebrate with Palestine?

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Banner in Ramallah, West Bank, on November 29. (WNV/A. Daniel Roth)

After the overwhelming “yes” vote on Mahmoud Abbas’ bid for Palestinian non-member observer state status at the United Nations on November 29, a friend in Canada wrote to me wondering if I would go and dance in the street in Tel Aviv. I might have been out there dancing if there had been any sign that anyone else was out there that night. I hate dancing alone.

Few in Israel were vocally in support of the bid. Strange, since it was a modest proposal that did nothing to harm Israel and only spoke of raising the status of Palestine in the eyes of the United Nations from an “entity” to a “state,” which seems like a reasonable step toward the “two-state solution” that so many Israelis claim to support. It was also a proposal that would not have any immediate impact on the ground in terms of ending the occupation — although it might have an impact on the way in which we think about what is possible.

The 138 yea votes to 9 nays that the world cast at the U.N. spoke loudly for the right of the Palestinian people to sovereignty. Only Israel, the United States, Canada and a few much smaller countries voted against it, taking a stand against Palestinian freedom — and, by extension, any hope for Israeli freedom.

Some Israelis did speak out in favor of the bid, including former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the more than 300 people, led by the leftist political parties Meretzand Hadash, who rallied in support of the bid last Thursday.

The rally took place in Tel Aviv outside the building where David Ben Gurion first declared Israeli independence exactly six and a half decades earlier in 1948. The rally drew on the historical significance of November 29, and in so doing recognized the fact that Jewish self-determination and Palestinian self-determination depend on each other.

Whatever voices were cheering for the Palestinian victory last week, however, have been once again drowned out by the “facts on the ground.” In response to the world’s resounding support for Palestinian freedom at the U.N., Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans for 3,000 new settlers’ homes and that building would recommence in the E1 region east of Jerusalem — possibly putting an end to the last chance for a contiguous Palestinian state in the West Bank, just as the international community stood up to affirm support for one. The response from the U.S. to that move has been verbal disapproval but no action. Some EU nations are talking about recalling their ambassadors as punishment.

The Israeli street is silent. Aside from some voices in the (progressive) press, not many are even talking about the U.N. bid anymore in this country. Netanyahu’s announcement is only a slightly sped-up version of the norm in the West Bank. Building plans and home demolitions in East Jerusalem and the West Bank are proceeding as they did before. The occupation continues despite the clarity with which most of the world has spoken on behalf of Palestinian freedom. Israel has continued to succeed in preventing a nonviolent mass movement against the occupation from taking hold, despite the many Palestinians, Israelis and international supporters trying to create one.

Meanwhile, on the Palestinian street, the international press has been reporting about the big outdoor parties and extravagant ceremonies in honor of Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. My friends, colleagues and trusted sourcesin the West Bankall say otherwise, though. A cafe patron near Ramallah’s Arafat Square explained to me that despite the fact that the PA orchestrated the celebrations by closing the schools and calling for people to leave work to celebrate, these festivities were even less well attended than last year’s rallies in favor of U.N. inclusion.

Perspectives about this milestone in Palestinian society vary. The feelings of cynicism that I witnessed in Ramallah contrasted with a fireworks display near the Hizma checkpoint and the projection of the news at a major hub just outside the Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem. There was a sense of excitement throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem about the world’s declaration that Palestine is a state, even if it didn’t change the facts on the ground at all.

Still, pessimism is the most common view I have heard on both sides of the Green Line. Many activists and youth throughout the West Bank agree with Ali Abunimah of The Electronic Intifada, who views Abbas as nothing more than a puppet for the Israeli occupation. Insistence on, and faith in, a just two-state solution is faltering more and more these days. It seems less and less realistic with each additional settler in the West Bank. However, every attempt to pursue other proposals for Palestinian human rights are met by Netanyahu’s government with an increase in settlement building and a further decrease in the available options.

While the prospects are dim, the Palestinians’ desire for self-determination runs deep. Israelis must come to learn that they won’t find any lasting safety in refusing it; real freedom for one people requires ensuring it for both peoples. For me, this goes to the core question of what it means to build a society that truly reflects the foundational Jewish values of truth, justice and peace.

These values are reflected in the history of Jewish participation in movements for economic justice across Europe and North America, as well as in the vision of socialist-Zionists like Martin Buber — who maintained throughout his life, well into the 1950s, that Jewish liberation is inextricable from Palestinian liberation. Those pillars of Jewish ethics are central to Jewish thought, tradition and culture.

In Israel today we see those values reflected in the pages of just a few news sources — +972 Magazine, for example, and at times in the pages of Haaretz. We see those values reflected in the activist networks through which people are fighting the occupation daily. We see them in the uniquely Israeli youth movements such as Hashomer Hatzair (The Young Guard) who have continued the struggle for a just society for generations. We see them in the ranks of political parties like Hadash and Meretz who stood up for Palestinian self-determination last Thursday. But they’re still not nearly enough.

Whatever hope came from the U.N. vote is an uncertain hope, a hope in a symbol that belies the reality. Still, that symbolic forward motion can become something real if we take this as an opportunity to organize around what has emerged as a near unanimous view around the world: that recognition and freedom are essential to true justice and true peace here in Israel and Palestine.

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A. Daniel Roth is a writer, photographer and educator living in South Tel Aviv. He was born and raised in Toronto and lived in a commune of the Hashomer Hatzair movement in New York City for many years. You can find more of his work at allthesedays.org and follow him on Twitter @adanielroth.

It seems to me that the basic opposition at this point to the two state solution is not world opinion or america or geo-strategic considerations or the Arab world or the Palestinians, but Israeli public opinion and the Israeli leadership. Since Oslo, Israeli politiciens have used the “peace offensive” of the Palestinians to lower the cost of the occupation and speed up colonization in the West Bank.

The political difference between Israel/USA and the rest of the world rests on a disagreement about the basic principle at the basis of the negotiations. Even since before Oslo, the Palestinians and the global consensus have pushed for negotiations on the basis of international law, whereas Israel/USA have pushed for negotiations on the basis of “direct talks”, which means on the basis of the political power imbalance between a state and a resistance group politically tied to the commitment of ending resistance. Within the “direct negotiations” framework, the power imbalance is simply too extreme to come to a settlement which is acceptable to the Palestinian people – most would rather return to resistance rather than live in a non-viable state with no part of Jerusalem as its capital.

It’s easy to say that the the problem with the idea of compromise is it assumes that the stronger party is rational enough to give up some of its privilege to come to a settlement acceptable to both sides. Israeli society has been choosing against peace for years by electing governments more committed to counter-terrorism and colonization than to recognition of Palestinian rights and working towards creating a viable Palestinian state. The more difficult thing is to recognize the dishonesty in continuing to affirm a politics based on the lies told by entrenched elites, which no longer have the function of moving towards a two state settlement but are now mostly part of a game of maintaining their power.

The radical position to take today is to recognize that the Palestinian people are no longer represented by the leadership of the Palestinian Revolution – Oslo has gutted the PLO has disenfranchised most Palestinians. Any two state solution based on the current elites will merely be an entrenchment and humanization of the occupation, with nothing for the refugees and nothing for the million Palestinians who have Israeli citizenship. However, the radical insight is not this but the recognition that Israeli society can no longer be considered a potential party in peace negotiations, but a racist, colonial people who have overwhelmingly chosen apartheid over peace by ramping up settlements and destroying the viability of a Palestinian state.

I think a more productive role that zionists committed to principles of anti-racism can take today is to ally not with the corrupt Palestinian leadership who continues to be committed to a solution systematically undermined by Israeli unilateral actions, but to ally with the Palestinian diaspora against intransigence, corruption and the lack of genuine political leadership on both sides. Rather than create another Lebanon in Palestine, the time has come for the youth to embrace a future free of the quick equivocation between religion and nationality, but instead to recognize nationality as something only of worth insofar as it is liberating, and once national freedom is achieved to move forward to the next liberation. As a Palestinian poet I recently saw declared, “I would burn this flag and my keffiyeh if my people were not burning”.

Such a political program based on liberation rather than essentialized communities already has a historical figuration in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: it was taken up by Fatah and the Marxist factions in the late 60s and early 70s as they created alliances with anti-colonial third world liberation movements all around the world. And they developed quite a sophisticated analysis of how to persuade Israeli jews to join them in their struggle against the ethnic nationalism of the Israeli state. This program can be read about in this early 70s publication by the General Union of Palestinian Students in Kuwait: http://www.freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC12_scans/12.towards.democratic.state.1970.pdf

Unfortunately, the PLO never lived up to its highest ideals and over time resentment and eventually religious nationalism won the day. This doesn’t mean a return to anti-racist politics is impossible, however, especially if led by the youth on both sides. Equality, religious freedom, and indigenous rights have a lot to offer to Palestinians. And all that Israelis are asked to give up is religious and colonial privilege. The principle of de-colonization, led by the youth, and supported by a non-violent resistance campaign around the world can give force to ideals worth fighting for in Israel/Palestine today. And while Israel has hardly been a light unto the nations, its decolonization could serve as a shining example of historical justice that could help open the way for the decolonization of other places around the world where European settlers continue to deny their role in the disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples.

If people don’t like the long winded comment above, I can make a much simpler one: is it reasonable to believe that Israelis will acquiesce to a principled basis of negotiations which doesn’t maximize the power differential between the parties? Or, can peace only be achieved through negotiations if the balance of power is shifted either by a shift in power which requires either a shift in military power or a non-violent campaign of political isolation? Unfortunately these two tactics do not mesh well with each other – I think both a shift in military power or the increasing political isolation of Israel will further radicalize Israeli society on the right.

Small thing, but wat does the author mean, “the uniquely Israeli youth movements such as Hashomer Hatzair (The Young Guard) who have continued the struggle for a just society for generations”? He knows full well that HH was a movement born in Eastern and Central Europe, and has branches around the Jewish world, not solely within Israel. [Disclaimer: I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of HH. although I am an activist within the not-unrelated American jewish group, Partners for Progressive Israel.]

Arieh, Right you are. This didn’t come out as clearly as I had intended. Apologies. I was trying to concisely describe the unique role that the “Blue Shirt” Socialist movements have had (and still have) in Israeli society. Being a life long member of one of these movements in North America I should have been more clear that these movements(such as Hashomer Hatzair) were (by and large) born in Europe and are active today all over the world. These are unique movements that are active all over the world, including in Israel in large numbers.

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